On Call

Something I wrote. It needs to be strongly revised. I think it needs stronger imagery and less "telling". Also, copying and pasting this messed up the line breaks a little but whatever.

On Call

I set out to rebuild you from old memories:

a long wool coat that kept you warm

nights we traversed through back country roads, the leaves and snow

crunching beneath our feet

nervous fingers contorted to fit my own

          I set out to rebuild our relationship:

staring at the ominous computer screen

digging through a junkyard pile of thoughts, writings, conversations

scavenging my brain for where I erred

broken pieces of a year gone by

                I set out to rebuild our friendship:

after being locked away I traced my way

tinkered and hinged to make you see

that it was only me

and I alone

                Memories, letters, snippets of deep late night conversation

they will not have your eyes

they will not smell like your coat with my nose buried in your shoulder

they will not make me feel your nervous hands on my face

or the song that echoed in that empty parking lot

I meant to invent the old you

And then put you back again--

--I think you saw this coming

The Roller Derby Girls

A monologue of an experience. 

I don’t consider this to be the “worst” thing I’ve ever done.

But to some, it might be.

It was just another weekend in Baltimore.

I was at my usual scene—a warehouse rave next to the train tracks.

And by warehouse rave, I mean in an old abandoned bank.

The music inside was thumping so loud; I could feel it vibrate my organs. Sometimes, when the train rushed by, the entire building would shake and you couldn’t tell if it was the music or the drugs.

And by drugs I mean Molly.

And if you know what Molly is, then you’ve done it. Or know someone who has.

And so there I was dancing, probably looking like an idiot waving my glowsticks around when one of my friends grabs my arm and pulls me into a dark corner.

35 for you, he says.

I froze. I felt like an idiot and to prevent further looking like an idiot, I pulled out two 20’s and slid them into his hand.

I had never done this before.

But I was willing to try.

He goes off for awhile, comes back, slips me a 5 and 2 pills. I say thanks and he disappears into the throbbing crowd.

Suddenly, I find myself in a dirty bathroom stall staring at these two peach colored pills with what I think are doves stamped on them. The Dove from the soap commercials.

Clunk.

I felt the pill travel down my throat and dissolve in my stomach.

See, here is the part where I mess up. You are only supposed to take one and wait a good 6 hours before taking the second one.

I did not know this.

I waited 15 minutes, got impatient, and clunked down the second pill.

Within the hour, it hit me.

Time stood still.

I was rolling.

I didn’t think I could ever feel this good in my life. The colors swirled slowly around me, the music flowed through me, and I talked to everyone and anyone that just happened to walk by.

I was able to match my glowstick patterns with the music that was playing.

The music never sounded so good. I was in complete heaven for 2 straight hours and I wanted it to last forever.

I remember thinking why the hell don’t they give this to people with depression or anxiety issues? I had no anxiety at all. I was free.

That didn’t last long.

If you know this drug, you know that it is almost never pure. It is almost always cut or laced with something.

In this case, mine was apparently laced with meth and heroin.

I became nervous. Everyone’s faced started to contort into strange shapes with their laughter.

I squeezed and twisted my glowsticks so hard that one of them snapped and spilled its glowing, putrid bile all over my tank top.

I freaked out.

Since you are supposed to wait such a long interval before taking the second pill, I technically overdosed.

And seeing as this was winter, I was outside wandering around in weather below 30 degrees, rapidly talking to myself, hot as hell but for some reason shivering.

The train raced by me and I screamed.

Fucking TRAIN.

All the symptoms were there that I had read about. Paranoia, grinding teeth, rapid heart rate, racing thoughts.

Oh my God. The racing thoughts.

I thought about 100 things per second.

Which reminds me, that night I literally stared at the clock with a face mask full of Vick’s vapo rub to soothe me, Björk’s haunting voice echoing off the graffiti plastered walls.

I couldn’t breathe.

I stared at myself in the mirror because my pupils were as big as quarters and I just KNEW someone was going to notice and all I could think about were my pupils, and the THOUGHTS, and I CAN'T BREATHE, and goddamnit that TRAIN.

Then morning came. My quarter sized pupils were still there. I felt like complete and total shit, I looked like shit, and the rest of my day was just shit.

But it was worth it.

And I was hooked.

Up, Up, and Away

I feel like I'm exactly back to where I was a year ago--stressed, trapped, depressed, apathetic towards life.

I don't know what to do...I miss the year 2009. Probably the best and most complicated year of my life.

Squid ink skies with holes punched through, driving back roads, meadows, corn fields, trees, fallen leaves, graveyard, stargazing, being so cold I can't feel my feet; I feel as though that whole point in my life was just a backdrop of stars and chilly night time air. And no matter how hard I wish or dream, I will never be able to relive it. Too bad if I were to go back, I would only create a paradox.

I met wonderful people, had relationships with those people, and unfortunately broke their hearts more than once. Part of being Borderline is not being able to hold a very stable relationship. Hell, at this point, my relationship with my husband is on it's last legs.

Music for me has always been a marker for me in time. Like a bookmark. Perfumes are the same way. I will wear certain scents or listen to certain songs to take me back to those moments. I find myself crying, wishing I could go back and make things right. Change things around for a different outcome. But that's the problem with life; there are so many outcomes. I hate to say it, but this isn't the outcome I had dreamed of. I cry everyday hating this place, hating my life, and having no idea what to do about it. If I were to leave this place, I would only find myself missing it. Why am I like this? I react this way with everything and everyone. Maybe I just have too much love to give? Maybe I'm just indecisive? Or maybe I'm just destined to be alone and flit from person to person with the my only sole purpose being to change their lives.

Every time I have left someone when I started to feel empty, needing to fill that void, I would pursue another person or a drug or a bad habit. But every time that I had left, their lives changed for the better. They pulled themselves together and told the world "Fuck you" I'm going to make myself a better person. Is that my only purpose on this Earth? To change people?

I don't know anymore. I am in limbo.

Madness.

I don't really know what to write about at this particular moment, all I know is that I must write because it's 4 in the morning and I feel like I am colliding around in my head, tossing papers, trying to find the perfect topic to write about, yes! Something that will make me express myself and inspire others to think and wonder about this special topic themselves and I can already feel this turning into a ramble-type post because I have taken Percocet all night long and am in this hazy sort of state, a yawn opening up in my chest and swallowing the world around me. In my head, I see either my mind or my chest opening up and swallowing and stretching every thing inside of me like a black hole, colors, shapes, music, sound...all echoing and being stretched forever and I hear Pink Floyd (of course) while this is happening...in fact the only reason I said that is because I have a play list on shuffle and Pink Floyd just so happens to be on said play list and is playing AT THIS INSTANT.

Hearing this is my head, I have lost my marbles. Yes, I am mad as a hatter, chattering about, randomly spurting nonsense into a nonsensical world called the internet and it's twisted individuals. Sometimes I'm convinced the most horrid people dwell on the internet. Yes, I am on the internet and you are too if you are reading this. Not trying to call you or myself horrid, but when I say this, I can only imagine that you know what I am talking about. Then again I shouldn't judge; matter of opinion. Ahem.

Fuck. You know what I hope to be? Fucking superwoman. Maybe I have low self-esteem or that I'm not working through my issues. What I want is to become the woman who can do it all. The kind of person who can pay her bills on her own, do the laundry, keep the house spotless, make marvelous dinners, and go to school full-time, and do research, and write, and keep up with family and friends, and have the perfect relationship and keep my husband happy and wanting only me, and not take so many painkillers in order to be blissfully stupid-happy, and be the life of the party, and, and, and.

I want to be superwoman, and the fact that I'm not makes me hate myself and constantly wonder why I'm such a waste. Such a waste of space on this planet, a waste of air and resources.

The problem is my life is chaotic and yet I cannot live without the chaos.The chaos and me are one; Siamese twins.The ups and downs, this other dark side of myself that drives me to do the terrible, idiotic things that put my life and relationships in danger. The side that makes me drop out of school, quit work, and give everything up. The part of me that shuts my life down and creates a life of it's own with it's only purpose: to destroy everything.

But everyone forgets and claim I am better because I have managed to stay out of the hospital. No ther-rapists spouting their diag-nonsense at them letting them know I am a very, very sick girl. If I'm not chucking shit around the house, doing drugs, taking off in the middle of the night, slicing my arms up like a Virginia ham, I must be better, right?

God, they are so far from the truth.

Opposites Attract?

Had to write another Ruefle imitation style of prose. This is unedited with no corrections. Not sure if I'm very adapt at prose or not.

I was reading about Chemistry and the ideas of molecules and atoms and their reactive properties with certain elements, and I always have noticed that these ideas are similar to how people react in society, two women fighting over a sale rack item or two men arguing over politics would have the same reaction as red phosphorus being thrown into water, exploding in each other’s faces until they bounce right off of each other and go about their ways. But it’s interesting because they are more alike than they think they are, both negatively charged particles ricocheting off of each other and bouncing back again. Two people who get along just fine would be two positively charged particles, bouncing ideas or jokes off of each other, laughing and screaming in such fits of glee that they, yet again, bounce off the walls only to come crashing to the floor in a heap of tears and aching bellies. And then there are the positively charged particles that come into contact with the negatively charged particles, “opposites attract” they always say but in fact, when they “bond” together, they are stuck with each other to listen about the others interests with whom they don’t much  care about because they are opposites. They have nothing in common, it’s just the way things are and so they drift away wishing for a more exciting chemical reaction, watching the positives with the positives and the negatives with the negatives rushing at each other in such a flurry of passion, anger, and flushed, red faces.

The Grocery Store

Had to write this for my creative writing class. The assignment was to imitate the style of Mary Ruefle. There is a lot I don't like about it but we get to revise all of our pieces and turn them in again at a later date to share. I figured I would share this.

It is a Sunday morning and like all Sunday mornings it is when the grocery shopping must be done. If it were done on any other day, it would feel like a crime against nature. Yet, here I am at the grocery store at 11:30 like always walking with my cart to the front doors when I see a young teenage girl in a small plaid skirt, the kind you might imagine a school girl wearing, and here she is looking as though she might melt into a puddle, her face red, eyes a crazed and mottled shade of blue. I wonder why she is crying, and I observe her looking into the reflection of the glass windows, staring at legs, her thighs touch and I imagine that THIS must be what she is crying about because what else would a teenage girl have to cry about besides unrequited love? The obsessions that, we as humans, have with the female figure, the body almost seems separate from the mind, two distinct entities: one to satisfy others sexually, the other to remind you to not forget the milk at the grocery store. This same body that is whistled, hooted, and honked at, A body that is forever poked, prodded, and weighed like a laboratory rat, constantly at wrong for eating too much, eating too little, a million details that all point to this solitary girl in her plaid skirt on this rainy Sunday morning and says: Destroy yourself. I realized that I was witnessing this very girl, her finger hovering above her own self-destruct button, weighing the pros and cons of that decision; but who cares about pros and cons because the mind wants what the mind wants and nobody ever DARES ask the body what IT wants, but in the end, the body wins and you shut up and eat your damn Cheerios.

Arboreal

I'm sitting here listening to an old winter playlist of songs I used to listen to right before I moved (and when I got here). The Flashbulb and Explosions in the Sky kept my mind occupied as I drifted off into a nostalgic world in my head while driving; the roads in Missouri are endless it feels like. I remember not only having these two groups as my driving music but also as my writing and running music. Running in the crisp night air of winter with a full moon around a lake listening to this playlist was surreal in every way. I cannot seem to explain it. I may even have to write a poem about it.

To be honest, those first few months of living here were a dream in and of itself. They blended into each other, the pictures and lines merging into one another. Now as I think back on it, I see myself looking through this smeared greasy lens of self hate, homesickness, and resentment towards my husband. I missed smoking pot, dropping ecstasy and staying out to all hours of the night to silence the madness that was roaring inside my head, anything to escape what I was truly feeling. Which was way too much. Or nothing at all. I think sometimes I did these things to feel something. While at other times, if feeling too much, I had to spin my "Wheel of Fortune" of what destructive act I could inflict on myself to stop the spinning, stop the chaos.

This summer has probably been the shortest summer of my life. I did (almost) absolutely nothing because of the damned heat. I felt like I was crawling around in someone's hot mouth. Oh my that sounded dirty. Heh. But really, the summer months just kinda felt like one whole month of boring, lazy hell. I was the sin Sloth. Nothing aroused interest or pleasure in me except lazy days on the couch reading book after book losing myself in another world that was much more interesting and exciting than my own.

Too bad I'm (more than likely) going to be here another god damned 4 years.

I am Here and then I am Not.

I have been pondering this all day today and admittedly for the past couple weeks. Ever since I have moved to the "Great Midwest", I feel as though my creative drive or energy that propels me to write something AMAZING, has left me. In Maryland, my home environment, I was able to write the best of my work. Poems that have won me Editor's Choice Awards, poetry readings, and checks to help me pay for my school books. It was the first time I had ever been published and I was proud. I felt that if things kept up (and if I smoked more drugs) I would be cranking out more in no time.

However, since I've been here, the only thing I have been managing to work on is a "How To" guide to becoming a fucking Vegan. Please. Where is the creativity in that? I am sure I could make it creative but any willing editor would probably cut half of that shit out. Besides that, I feel that it isn't "me". I’m thinking that when I start my classes next week, I’ll be able to find that creative drive again and seize it, and refuse to let it go. Others could possibly read this and just stamp this off as a common case of writer’s block. I don’t believe in writer’s block. I believe in getting up off your ass (or in this case sitting on your ass) and getting some writing done. Write while your mind is wandering and I’m sure you’ll be able to fish something out.

Being able to crank out poems every week for classes or writing groups left me feeling high. Typing up my work in an attractive font, printing out copies, stapling and handing them out for others to read. Feeling that rush from reading my work to a silent but interested group, hunched forward, hands cradling heads in amusement and wonder. I felt especially proud when it was a poem that gave me chills such as my "Watercolor" piece. This I wrote on a slow morning at work when I worked at the pet store in a small shopping center. I liked mornings there, I was able to sit and just write whatever came to mind in a small journal I brought with me everyday.

And now I am out of things to say.

mmmmmmGrapes.

I've received several concerned facebook messages over the past 6 or so months about my blog. This online blog, one of the many outlets to the outside world that I do have, has seemed to cause quite a stir. I never really saw it before but I guess a lot of my posts take on a "melancholy" rhythm to them soon turning into an orchestra of harsh notes about myself and the world.

What can I say? I'm a melancholy sort of person.

But it has gotten to the point where I'm starting to watch what I type on here, what I choose to reveal to the world, while not a lot, still more than what I would like people to know. I guess so many people (a whole whopping 7 subscribers!) feel that I'm not in "touch" with a higher being or that I play with the idea of death in my mind. While both of those are somewhat true (and I appreciate my friend's concerns), I use this online blog as a way to release certain emotions that I don't feel like writing down in my physical journal. This poses it's own "problems" (or should I say "anxieties?" I think that term is more correct).

First off, I feel critiqued on these "musings", which is perfectly okay because I love to be critiqued. I feel that there is ALWAYS room for improvement, especially in the world of writing. Except when writing these entries, I know that anyone can read them and therefore I am consistently second-guessing myself on the EXACT word that PRECISE word in which to impress my readers. Not saying this is a bad thing, but god does it send me into a tizzy when writing these blasted things. I'm a perfectionist. If it's not right, god help me for i have sinned i wrote the wrong sentence.

Second thing...I've actually second-guessed it and decided not to type it.

Finally, I don't write as much on here as I do in my physical journal. I like being able to take my journal with me so that I can write anywhere when the mood strikes. I write more than my blog suggests but the people subscribed aren't going to know that. I feel like I am seen a "lazy writer" or some schlock that my stupid brain repeats in my head echoing it's nonsense. And even as I typed that, I still believe the former. I assume people think all the writing I do is my lousy, emotional posts that are about as long as a slice of bread.

In fact, go get a piece of bread and measure this post.

Meth is one hell of a drug.

Since I have moved from metropolitan Maryland and have driven the 1,000 miles (968 miles to be exact), I've noticed that the area of Missouri I have resided in contains only three things: gas stations, all night diners, and meth labs.

I have never in my life felt the pain of homesickness. Well, no I lied, actually once when I moved out of my house at 18 because my parents told me I couldn't. I lasted a month? Maybe two. But that was of course different. I was about 2 miles away from my house when I moved at that time and now I'm 18 hours away. Hell, a couple days ago I cried the hardest I ever had in my life. I always thought that I would have been fine away from home ( because I love change and variety in my life) but come to think of it, I probably don't seeing as how I'm almost always in tears, or throwing things in our house in a fit of rage, or just staring at all four white walls feeling nothing at all.

I guess this is turning into a sort of rant-at-the-world-oh-pity-me kind of entry. 

But really, I love to drive and always have. It was actually something I was well-known for back in Frederick; kidnapping people in my red Pontiac chariot and giving them tours of the many back roads of the greater Maryland/Virginia area. Now, I don't even have a job to make money to afford to drive around like that anymore. It's making me stir crazy. I feel like Jack Nicholson out of The Shining. 

After all of this, I've learned something about myself. Instead of craving lots of change and variety, I cling to what I'm used to, what I've always known, to "normalcy" if you wanna call it that. I was born and raised in Frederick, Maryland and thought that I would never leave (and I was actually okay with that). Of course I wanted to travel and I love to travel. However, I've always noticed that after about a week of being somewhere "new", I couldn't wait to fly home, look down at the Baltimore city lit up and alive, watching everyone drive like maniacs on the way home, having the smell of my home waft around me, and curling up with my cat, Gizmo, on my bed. She always smelled like rain to me.

The almost 3 months I've been in bum-fuck-nowhere Missouri, I've realized that I took my old home for granted sometimes. I've started kicking myself for every invitation out to a movie or lunch I turned down, or DJ-ing at a party that I didn't feel like doing, or just being OUT more instead of locking myself away in my basement (I did this for the last few months I was in Maryland. I guess I was scared). I remember the night before I was supposed to move trying to runaway in my little red car in the middle of an ice storm with a quarter tank of gas left and no idea where I was going to runaway TO. I was kind of high off of a mixture of pot and mushrooms and had cuts all up my left arm crying in a weird sort of numb dreamlike state and wishing I were dead.

Even now, I wish I wouldn't have made the move but then again I would have kicked myself for not taking the risk and regretting "what could have been".

I guess in the end it's better to have the experiences, good and bad, to appreciate what you left behind.

......

Why are you wearing that stupid man-suit?

Ambien-t

Absolute perfect time to write according to me is after I’ve taken Ambien to sleep.  This way, random things come to mind easier, it’s easier to just keep the flow of typing running along without making much sense since I’m already kind of out of it but with fun music and the late hour, it almost seems really surreal. I wanna stay in this fun state for a long time if I could. I wish I could look at the world this way with such intent and hopefulness in the people that I know and god I know this doesn’t make any sense but as I’m typing this is makes perfect sense to me in my mind as it rolls on through. My mind being the controller as my hands are the slaves trying to catch up with my mind as they type away trying to figure out my brain’s code to transfer over to my fingertips. The music isn’t helping oh god the music isn’t helping. The music is making me think of good times, bad times, sad times, all at a mile a minute so now my heart feels emotionally confused as to what to what it should be feeling like. I thank the Flashbulb for this by the way. It is indeed my writing music. My writing music that I can’t seem to stop listening to music. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I could keep up with my astronomy and physics major when I move away…a part of me doesn’t feel as smart anymore because of the depression and no motivation to do anything but even  as I’m typing out sad things, I feel happy because on ambien (and listening to ambient music haha I wonder if that’s how they came up with the name for ambient…)  I feel like I’m on a cloud in the sky in the earth in Maryland in Frederick in my house in my basement in my couch. Hell maybe I should just start taking a half of ambien to get me through the day making me happy hell I almost feel high and the only thing that I really want to do is write write write whatever comes to mind and I know I do these exercises frequently, this isn’t an exercise, merely me just typing a lot without worry to spelling, punctuation and organizing my thoughts in these essays that I write in my blog for mainly Rob Anderson to read and whoever else lurks on my blog. I’m trying to continue with this but not the song changed and I feel weird so I need to switch to to something different so I can continue this writing spree. Prefect okay. What do I see if I close my eyes listening to this song? It starts out like a black hole in the universe except instead of leaving the black hole, you decide to be stretched for eternity and while you are being stretched you think about your life and whats in it. The beginning of your life, your childhood, the popsicles at grandma’s house, running around barefoot in the summertime, I had a tan and blonde hair how is that even possible I wish I could tan again. I’m trying I swear I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Then you go into that area where you start meeting friends and it speeds up and everything sound a little more clear, the notes, rhythm, the beat, synths, piano, it all forms together and isn’t blurry anymore upon being previously stretched. The farther you go, the more clearly things can be seen including maybe mistakes but mostly just fond memories and then memories you can’t forget even if they were bad but you are stretching on and on past them…on to your future.

Inside

I realized something. Well, maybe not just realized it but denied it for the longest time.

I can’t seem to look people in the eyes. Maybe brief glances but never for too long.

I don’t know why this is (for me at least). There are probably a thousand reasons, excuses, and theories as to why a person can’t look someone in the eyes for too long.  For some people, it’s a phobia. They could be paranoid thinking, “If I look this person in the eyes they are going to know how terrible of a person I think that I am and they are never going to want to see or hear from me again.” I can understand that. 

Actually, hold it right there. A phobia. Maybe I have a phobia of looking people in the eyes. All my life, I’ve always had people say to me, “Look at me when I’m talking to you. Why can’t you look me in the face?” etc. etc…

Christ, at my own wedding at the courthouse, I seriously couldn’t even look my own husband in the eyes when saying my vows to him. I looked at the floor. And everyone seemed to jump my shit afterwards as to WHY I couldn’t look him in the face. They were describing to me their frustrations upon seeing me meekly mumble my vows to the FLOOR. Saying to themselves, “Emily! Look up! Emily come on…look at him!” Of course, this brought on a series of arguments assuming that I didn’t love him and therefore wasn’t good enough for him (whether it was said out of anger or truth, I don’t know. I am told it was merely out of anger but sometimes the truth comes out when you’re angry. Sometimes.)

Well, when I’m angry at people I can look them dead in the eyes and say whatever obscenities come to mind. This has been pointed out to me and as I think back on times where I’ve been caught in a hurricane of rage, I clearly see it. I wasn’t yelling at the floor. 

What does that say about me? That I can be quick to cut someone with my words while looking them in the eyes but I can’t when giving promises of forever faithfulness?  I swear, I really wonder about myself. 

This whole discussion turns me back to an old blog entry I wrote on fetishes and how I had a fetish with a person’s hands. That I could clearly recall anyone’s hands in my mind, how they moved, grabbed, pulled, scratched (wow this all sounds so dirty but it’s not). But I also remember myself saying that I couldn’t look into their eyes.  I really wish I could turn back those stubborn as hell hands of time and look my goddamn husband in the eyes during our wedding vows. That I truly regret. 

I guess I just didn’t want him to see.

Death

So I'm laying in my bed completely exhausted when a thought occurred to me:

What if people who have attempted suicide or have had near-death experiences had actually died but instead of going to “heaven’ or “hell” or seeing some light or whatever you may believe in, had actually just continued to live their lives in a different state. Maybe being dead is actually just continuing to live “life” as it would have played out without your physical body dying? Maybe in a parallel universe, the people you left behind are suffering and mourning over your death while in the universe you are “living” in is actually just “death” itself. The body dying while the soul continues to live on as how your life could have ended up.

Dog Days Are Over.

Ya know who I admire? The women who are in relationships and are completely secure with the relationship itself. No worries. No staying up late wondering what's going on through their heads. Just relaxed, no worries, be happy, chill chill happy fun times.

Then there is that rare breed of the female population. The ones who let their significant others chase women, hell, even sleep with them if the opportunity presented itself (as long as they didn't come back with herpes). I just can't wrap my head around it. I know that as a human race, we are not meant for monogamy. But I'd like to think that maybe we, as a human race, have also developed far beyond our "instinctual desires". But a part of me, kinda wishes that I were like that. Because let's face it, what man wants an uptight girlfriend/wife that is so worried about what they are doing when they aren't around? I know that I'm personally like that due to having a Borderline personality. Then again, I guess that's no excuse but it's harder for me than for the normal person you could say.

I wish I could be the "perfect" whatever. Girl? I don't know.